Response

I enjoyed your post Sandy [http://normanwoofs1.blogspot.com/ ] about the use of Second Life.  In particular I found the limitations that you outlined to be particularly relevant.  I too discussed how Second Life could increase student engagement and presence but not without a cost.  Increasing presence and participation through Second Life runs the risk of exposing students to controversial material (outside the scope of your class), stretching the capabilities of students by challenging them with technology and costs that could diminish their investment in other aspects of the course (of particular concern to me would be a diminished investment in the material as they are spending more time learning about Second Life) and perhaps spending their funds in this virtual world and/or on the program itself limiting funds for books and other supplies.  One thing that I found in your post that I had not taken up in my own that is worth mentioning is the notion of ownership that you raise.  Increasing student ownership of the learning process is a challenge for me in my online teaching and certainly, as reflected in the literature we have read thus far for the course, important in creating a productive learning environment.  I had not really thought about how having an avatar and participating in this virtual world would increase students feelings of ownership over the class and potentially their motivation to participate and actively engage until reading your post.  After reading your post I can see how having an avatar and a Second Life “island” to explore as a class could address what Paloff and Pratt (2007) call the “anonymity of this medium” (p7). 

I also believe Holder (2005) would find an interesting area of exploration if he were to take up the idea you present and examine how avatars contribute to learning communities and if they increase student motivation like other forms of online interaction may do!  I am very pleased that you brought this up as it opens my eyes to a side of the Second Life program that I had not explored and might find useful!   

Pros/Cons

I believe the strength of Second Life lies in the ability to increase interaction between students and students and the instructor however I believe this would also come at a price.  While we know that interaction is of the utmost importance in online education when it comes to student engagement and motivation (Paloff and Pratt, 2007 and Holder, 2005), Second Life offers students the chance to be someone of their own creation and to interact in a semi-anonymous way. I am concerned with the authenticity of the interactions this would generate.  If students are interacting via avatars, then are they inclined to be genuine?  Perhaps avatars would allow students to express controversial ideas or counter points that they would otherwise be too restrained to do (much like the literature suggests online learning in general is able to do) but could it not also blur the lines between authentic scholarly work and plagiarism?  Could students be inclined to explore alternative methods of knowledge creation (aka copying another’s work much like an identity could be copied) if they were engaging in classwork via avatars?  How would this impact learning communities and student engagement?  It seems as though Second Life raises more questions than it answers in regards to its applications in distance education. 

Tutorials

Thus far in this course I have participated in a multiple online tutorials with the goal of enhancing my teaching presence in my online courses.  Having been one of the few lone Facebook hold outs and unfamiliar with Second Life, the tutorials have presented me with some new and interesting information although I am not certain how or if I will use these programs in my online classes.  For me, Facebook does not present many opportunities that I cannot find in my learning management system so I am not inclined to use it despite understanding it better now.  I see the potential for using it to make an individual participant more “real”, which is certainly essential to the successful online course, as supported by the literature (Dixon, 2010, Plaoff and Pratt, 2007 and Larreamendy-Joerns & Leinhardt, 2006), however I believe there are other ways to do so better suited to my course needs. 

As for Second Life, I had never heard of this program (who knew NCSU had so many “islands”).  After watching the tutorial and completing the readings for this week, I am not more inclined to use this program.  I understand that it allows students to interact more and perhaps more personally online and that it allows them to “be anyone they want to be” (tutorial, nd) and to be anywhere they want to be.  As Warbuton (2009) stated, “this approach is one that facilitates an unprecedented openness” (p. 418) from which we can conclude that Second Life open’s doors to student participation and engagement.  However I am unclear as to what value it has in actually teaching materials for a discipline such as Sociology.  I can see that transporting your students to ancient Greece or a world class museum may be useful in certain courses, but for mine, I think the best Second Life could do is provide a social space for students and perhaps the instructor.  While the importance of presence is important, I think finding ways that increase presence and create authentic learning opportunities should be paramount for the online instructor. 

 In addition, according to Millheim (n.d) the role on online instructors is “ambiguous” (p.25), requiring them to develop a variety of teaching techniques. Thus it often becomes the responsibility of the online instructor to teach students about the technology as well as the discipline.   While this might be a responsible expectation for the successful online instructor, Second Life seems to require a great deal of technology teaching while providing limited opportunities to teach substantive material.  In the video tutorial, the instructors mention that to use Second Life effectively one must encourage self-sufficiency online.  I find this to be good advice, applicable to many online arenas and tools, but to be the crux of the problem with using Second Life in my teaching (undergraduate Sociology courses).  To encourage this self-sufficiency would take, in my opinion, too much of the class time and could potentially distract from the core concepts and learning objectives of the course.